Art meets action

These can all can lead people to disengage from climate change—just when we need to act most!

That is why the MAIA project seeks new ways to engage the public by combining science, art and education. Among other initiatives, our travelling exhibition, “Drivers of Change: Building the Climate Response Together," is designed to raise awareness through interactive, multimedia content, providing a fresh look at the issues and what is being done about them.

So we were delighted when the Museum of Palazzo Lanfranchi, Matera, Italy and Materahub offered to host the first edition of the exhibition in May in conjunction with the city’s Europe Week celebrations.

We spoke with Simone Zacchini, Art Historian and Head of the National Museum of Medieval and Modern Art of Basilicata – Palazzo Lanfranchi, Matera. 

I was contacted by the Materahub Consortium, which was organising “Europe Week” in Matera from 5th to 10th May 2025. I immediately and enthusiastically accepted their proposal to host the exhibition in the beautiful spaces of the internal cloister of the Palazzo Lanfranchi Museum. 

What better place than a public museum like this, recently restored, which, in previous years, has already hosted important institutional events of a global nature. For example, the meeting of the G20 Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Development in 2021 and the G7 Ministers on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in 2024).

Within a framework like Europe Week, which includes a dense program of cultural and educational events designed to honour the founding values ​​of the European Union, an exhibition funded by the Horizon Europe program fits in perfectly. It gave guests from all over Europe the opportunity to come into direct contact, at the same time, with one of the jewels of the rich cultural heritage of Matera, such as the Museum of Palazzo Lanfranchi.

According to the new definition given by the ICOM (International Council of Museums), a museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, preserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible cultural heritage. 

Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums promote diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically and professionally and with the participation of communities, offering diverse experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and sharing of knowledge. This is why museums must be “living” places, places of debate, comparison and not just passive contemplation of beauty. 

The exhibition was a fundamental event to raise public awareness of the challenges of climate catastrophe, inspiring sustainable actions and telling how some local and international communities have implemented the ecological transition. But immersed in the peace and artistic-architectural and natural beauty of our cloister, I really think we can educate much better, inspiring deeper reflections. 

It was notable that several visitors who were not aware of the exhibition, and had entered the Museum only to enjoy its historical-artistic collections, then lingered a long time in the cloister, reading in depth all the panels on display. 

And, vice versa, those who had entered the Museum specifically just to see the exhibition, perhaps between one event and another during Europe Week, were involved in the scenographic installation that we created and chose to take the time to visit the rest of the Museum as well.

The National Museums of Matera - Regional Directorate of National Museums of Basilicata, of which the Palazzo Lanfranchi Museum is a part, is looking forward to welcoming the next exhibition project, perhaps in another of our splendid locations, which, thanks to initiatives like this, gain even greater value. 

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